The well-known game of chess is played by two players with 16 special pieces moved by each contestant on a square checkered board having 64 square playing spaces in 8 rows of 8 squares each. The large variety of possible moves has provided a game of skill with a great deal of fascinating strategy. A number of inventors have attempted to design a four-player chess board, such as T. A. Castelano U.S. Pat. No. 3,433,482 or D. M. Isaac U.S. Pat. No. 3,844,563. However, the results were not very satisfactory since they altered the paths followed by the pieces or changed the number of pieces controlled by each player to such an extent that the strategy of play had little relation to the normal game of two-player chess.
Another inventor, Robert Zubrin U.S. Pat. No. 3,652,091, has created a hexagonal board that offers the possibility of three-player chess. Unfortunately, the provision of an odd number of players introduces several serious disadvantages. For instance, there is no clear-cut adversary relationship since a player at one moment appears to be allied with a second in attacking a third, while a little later he may find that both of the other players have turned a combined attack on himself. Also it becomes apparent that the frequently utilized maneuver in standard chess of exchanging pieces of equal rank cannot be used successfully in three-player chess since both of the players giving up pieces immediately become weaker with respect to the third player. Obviously the field is still open to the invention of a more satisfactory chess game in which more than two players may participate.